Monthly Archives: November 2014

Since the shooting of Michael Brown by a white policeman and the ensuing riots and looting in Ferguson, MO, Americans have been told, yet again, that there is an epidemic of crime against black people in this country. But is there really a race war, and if so, which side is actually waging it?

Join The Reagan Club’s very first speaker, Shawn Mitchell, as he returns to opine about any and everything political. He’ll tell you what’s on his mind as no one and nothing is sacred from his wit and observation.

It’ll be fun. Tickets are $20 for members and you can bring a guest for $12. Non-Members are $25. You can buy your ticket(s) online at: http://www.reaganclubco.com/meeting-tickets/ or at the door. Our meeting location is St Stephens Lutheran Church, 10828 Huron St, Northglenn, CO 80234

He was elected to Senate District 23 in the Colorado General Assembly in November of 2004. Shawn is an attorney at private practice in Denver and Adams County.

Previously, Shawn served as Special Counsel to the Attorney General, where he was a legal policy advisor and one of the top aids to former Colorado Attorney General Gale Norton. In that position, Shawn worked on significant constitutional litigation, including the Amendment 2 case and First Amendment litigation on issues of church and state.

Shawn also represented Colorado in fighting criminal appeals in the Colorado Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Shawn is a former Senior Fellow at the Independence Institute, a conservative and free-market think tank in Denver, CO. He continues to write and speak often on public policy issues.

Shawn is the president of the Colorado Chapter of the Federalist Society, a national organization of scholars, judges, and lawyers that promotes limited government and legal reform. He also served 3 years on the Denver Rocky Mountain News Board of Editorial Contributors.

Gov. John Hickenlooper won re-election by a greater margin than Cory Gardner won Colorado’s U.S. Senate race earlier this month. (Getty Images file)

Colorado Republicans did well in the recent elections, but not as well as they might have.

The governor’s race was not their problem. It turns out that Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper won re-election by a greater margin than Republican Cory Gardner defeated Sen. Mark Udall, despite early impressions to the contrary. And as The Denver Post’s John Frank has pointed out, “Hickenlooper nearly won by the same margin as he did four years ago when you look at the total conservative vote” — the conservative vote being split last time between two candidates.

In one respect, Hickenlooper performed even better this time. He was the single top vote-getter in the state, whereas in 2010 that honor went to Republican Attorney General John Suthers.

No, the problem for Republicans was the state House of Representatives, where they won the most votes but didn’t get an equivalent number of seats.

Republicans picked up three House seats, narrowing their disadvantage from 37-28 to 34-31. But Republican candidates actually received 55 percent of the total vote. That’s a seven-point swing from the 48 percent of the House that they will control starting January.

The disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act was the catalyst for my party’s midterm thumping.

I grew up in a Democratic family. I have been a registered Democrat since age 18, a Democratic candidate for statewide office in Colorado and a party precinct captain in that caucus state. I’ve volunteered for numerous Democratic candidates and contributed to party causes and campaigns. The 2014 election results were extremely disappointing for me, but hardly a surprise.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, then lost my job in the Great Recession. I was lucky; my brother lost his job and his house. I survived on part-time jobs while paying out-of-pocket for my health insurance.

I voted for President Obama again in 2012, then received a cancellation notice for my health insurance. This was due to ObamaCare, the so-called Affordable Care Act. However, I couldn’t afford anything else. Continue reading →

The demise of the GOP has been greatly ­exaggerated.

Ever since the Democrats were trounced in the midterm elections, they and the media have been trying to figure out how Republicans triumphed so thoroughly. Wasn’t the GOP supposed to be in permanent decline, on the wrong side of history, demography, and the issues? So far the soul searching has been almost nonexistent. National Journal’s Ron Fournier, a weathervane for centrist Beltway journalists, tried to dismiss the GOP’s triumph out of hand: “The Republican Party didn’t win the overall election—not with numbers like that. The winners,” he wrote, “were disgust, apathy, and a gnawing desire for a better choice.”

NOT DEAD YET: IMMIGRATION PROTEST, JULY 2014

The media probably won’t do much better than that unless they are prepared to revise the clichés and myths about Republicans they’ve been propagating for years, namely:

The party is being dragged down by its extremist base. This is actually a more telling critique of Democrats. In August 2012, the New York Timescommented on Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential selection by noting that “a long history of social extremism makes Paul Ryan an emblem of the Republican tack to the far right.” If Paul Ryan is emblematic of GOP extremism, you can say for sure that this alleged GOP handicap has been wildly oversold. Continue reading →

The Reagan Club meets on the second Thursday of every month at CB & Potts, 1257 W 120th Avenue, Westminster, CO, 80234 from 6:30 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. with doors open at 6:00 p.m. Enter via CB & Potts main entrance and head to the back meeting room. Food and beverages are available from CB & Potts.
We feature different programs and speakers as we honor the 40th President.
The Reagan Club of Colorado seeks to promote the Constitution, smaller government, lower taxes, personal freedom, helping candidates, and educating the public about one of our greatest presidents, Ronald Wilson Reagan.